


If It Takes All Night

by andlightplay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Off-screen Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 02:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andlightplay/pseuds/andlightplay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Dean wakes because his skin is prickling like the air's charged, the hair on his arms standing up and his clothes crackling when he moves. It's not something he's felt often, but it conjures up images of lights exploding in an old barn and electric wings trapped in a circle of fire.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Angels.</i>
</p><p>A speculative Season 6 finale. Originally <a href="http://andlightplay.livejournal.com/30214.html">posted on LJ</a> 16/05/11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If It Takes All Night

Dean wakes because his skin is prickling like the air's charged, the hair on his arms standing up and his clothes crackling when he moves. It's not something he's felt often, but it conjures up images of lights exploding in an old barn and electric wings trapped in a circle of fire.

Angels.

The next second Balthazar is striding up to his side, hand clamping down on his shoulder and then they've _moved_ , and Sam is pushing himself up in bed with Ruby's knife in in one hand while Dean scrambles to get to his feet under him where the transportation caught him half out of bed. Balthazar grabs for Sam with his free hand and then they're in Bobby's room, and a bullet catches the angel dead in the chest and another in the shoulder. Like Cas that first time Balthazar doesn't even flinch, just bares his teeth and mojos them right next to Bobby then releases Sam and Dean. Dean opens his mouth to ask what the fuck he thinks he's doing, but then Balthazar's got his little finger to Dean's forehead and there's that freaking _lurch_ and then they're in yet another big, echoing space with a concrete floor and dirty walls.

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doin'?" Bobby snaps, but Balthazar's ignoring him; he grabs the knife from Sam's hand and zaps over to the nearest wall, slicing dispassionately into his forearm and sketching out another one of the angels' sigils on the wall. Dean was pretty sure he knew all the warding symbols _ever_ by now, since they went through all the damn books Bobby posesses to block Cas after his little Crowley secret had come out, but this one's new; it has a loopy bit and some complicated Enochian scribble on top.

"That's new," Sam says quietly, watching Balthazar warily.

Bobby squints at it. "Looks sorta like the sigil Cas drew when you boys were off galivanting in the wild west. Said it kept angels out."

Something twists in Dean's stomach, heavy and familar but no less painful. Balthazar could've defected if he knows what they know about Cas's taste in allies, but he's always seemed like the kind of guy who'd think it was funny, and Dean can't shake the idea that him and Crowley would get a kick out of out-sarcasming each other. Which means Balthazar's probably still on Cas's side, and something big's going down. 

Balthazar's moved on, now marking out the banishing symbol - not the truncated version they've been using since Cas used it to kick Zachariah out of the green room, but the full version Dean hasn't seen since Anna drew it across her mirror and zapped Cas and that dick Uriel god-knows-where. Balthazar swipes at his arm for more blood to finish the triangle and frowns, irritated, then brings the knife over and slices another gash higher up and carries on. Dean exchanges a glance with Sam and Bobby - he can't even spare the time or energy to heal himself?

Balthazar continues around the perimeter, painting sigils across the walls and cutting himself anew whenever the bloodflow slows, and after the fifth time Sam calls, "Hey, can we, y'know, do anything? To help?"

Balthazar spares them the barest glance, then goes back to the wiggly thing he's concentrating on. "No." Then he goes stiff, shoulder's drawing tight and head snapping up. " _Fuck_."

"What?" Dean demands, and Balthazar sweeps the walls distractedly and teleports over to the symbol Bobby said kept angels out, scratching short and sharp at the circle with the knifepoint so the dried blood flakes off. 

Instantly there's that whoosh of displaced air and another half-dozen angels start popping up all over the place, all of them in suits and looking kind of dishevelled. Dean scans them automatically for that damn trenchcoat, or even the blue tie in case Cas has finally seen the light and ditched it, but they're all unfamiliar. His stomach pulls tighter. These guys have got to be the rebels, so where the fuck is their leader? A few of them notice what Balthazar is doing and join in, taking the blank walls or adding new sigils, but one of them staggers, white light shining out of her shoulder, and a couple of her companions catch her, solicitous but wincing away from the light like the sight of it is painful. 

"Is that- is this it?" Sam asks, staring round at them with troubed eyes. "Is this all Cas had to work with?"

Balthazar has gone back to his drawing and doesn't answer, busy cutting his finger to close off the sigil again, and Dean's seriously had enough of this silent crap and will damn well _make_ Balthazar listen, striding over and almost giving in to the urge to grab Balthazar by the shoulder and shake him.

"Alright, what the fuck's happening here? And where the hell is Cas?"

Balthazar goes still. Something in Dean's chest catches, like feeling the Impala judder under him down a smooth road. Then Balthazar turns to face him, face blank and jaw clenched tight, but his eyes are dark and somehow less human than they should be, deep and infinite and empty. "Castiel's dead."

Dean feels the words like a punch to the chest. He hears Sam make a low noise; Bobby suck in a breath. The other angels don't react, probably because they saw it happen. Is Cas sprawled out on some other floor in some other place like this, coat crumpled around him and wings charred into the concrete? Or did he go up like Anna, burning bright and blinding? Hell, maybe he just exploded again. Or did they torch him with holy fire, or rip his wings off and watch him bleed out? Raphael's always seems like a sadistic, vindictive son of a bitch, and the head of the rebel army, the one responsible for the uprising in the first place...a quick death would be too easy.

Balthazar's watching him, not with sympathy but with a kind of distant curiosity. "Yeah, annoying isn't it, knowing he isn't there to drop everything and come running to cater to your every whim. Must be quite the shock to the system, after three years of him saving your ungrateful arses at every fucking turn."

Dean punches him. He feels his hand break, but right then he _really_ doesn't give a shit; takes the initial flare of pain as a distraction, cutting through his grief. Then it expands, shooting up his arm, and it's still better than the alternative but _fuck_ , it _hurts_. Balthazar's lip curls, but he claps a hand to Dean's shoulder and the jolt makes the pain spike - and then splintering, hot-cold burn of it is gone. "He told me to keep you safe," he says pleasantly, the tightness of his jaw belying the tone of his voice, "and that's what I was trying to do, until it all went fucking pear-shaped. But you're going to need that arm."

"Raphael?" Dean asks, glancing around despite himself, and Balthazar smiles, all teeth.

"Ten points to Gryffindor."

"But-" and Dean has to swallow before he can carry on, "what-? How did Raphael-?"

"Kill him?" Balthazar finishes, trying for casual but missing. He looks away for a second. "Oh, it's not what you think. He wasn't _betrayed_ ," okay, so he does know, "he was just caught out. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong archangel."

Dean nods numbly, still trying to process this. Sure, Cas has died before - by archangel, even - but something tells Dean that this time he crossed a line and God won't bring him back.

_"We don't go out and make another deal with the devil!"_

_"It sounds so simple when you say it like that."_

"Not, of course, that you particularly care," Balthazar continues. "You never even bothered to understand why he did it, what this is really all about, did you?"

"I-" Dean can't quite make his throat work, feels like if he just concentrates hard enough this will all be a nightmare and he'll wake up. His words come out as a rough hiss. "He made a _deal_ with the _King of Hell_."

Balthazar stares at him, gaze suddenly as intense as Cas's. Wings flicker on the wall behind him, and a couple of the angels glance over. Balthazar doesn't sem to notice. When he speaks though, his voice is quiet, incredulous, though it quickly shifts into a sort of seething, contained fury. "It was for _you_. Not our Father, not because he thought you humans were the bees knees, but because of you, and Sam, and Grumpy over there; because he didn't want you to die. All of it - the deal, the souls, the killing, the lies - it was all to protect _you_."

"Souls?" Dean manages after a moment, feeling like he's wavering on his feet even though his eyes tell him he's standing as steady as he ever has. 

Balthazar looks kind of pissed at himself, but half-shrugs. "How do you think he got the juice to even _think_ of taking Raphael on? He borrowed fifty thousand souls from Crowley, that's what the deal was. What, you thought they _liked_ each other? You thought he was actually _enjoying_ having something that that," and he spits out a word that's probably something like 'goat-fucker' Enochian, "could hold over him? Wow. And you called yourself his friend?"

They're right up in each other's space by now, and Dean's wondering whether headbutting works any better than punching when the roof starts rattling. At first it's just like there's strong gust of wind, but then it gets worse, until the walls are shaking too and the whole building's making a chorus of tortured noises that don't bode well for its future structural integrity. Balthazar closes his eyes, muttering something under his breath that sounds like more Enochian, but whether it's a prayer or just a litany of swearwords Dean doesn't know. His first thought is Sam and Bobby, and anyway all the angels seem to be coming this way.

"You get any of that?" he asks when he gets back to them, and Sam and Bobby shrug, Sam's hand coming up to squeeze Dean's shoulder. Dean's palm finds Sam's back, the ridge of his spine and the reassuring solidness of his body.

"Bits," Bobby says, fingering his gun, and flicking his eyes up to the roof. "We got a plan here?"

Dean shrugs, looking back at Balthazar. He and the other angels are all clustered around the wounded one, hands and arms shining faintly, and she's got a kind of all-over halo thing going on, glowing golden. When they break away again, she's no longer bleeding Grace. Balthazar opens his eyes and takes a deep breath, then beckons Dean and the others over.

"They know we're here, kind of, but they can't get in. Or at least, they can't get in while the building is still standing. There doesn't seem to be any point in just running somewhere else, because they'll find us again-"

"What about those protection runes Cas carved on our ribs a couple years ago?" Sam asks, and Balthazar spreads his hands.

"Well you don't have them any more. He must've taken them off again, and he was always better at that kind of thing than me." He gestures at the other angels. "Any of you guys want to try carving delicate sigils onto thin human ribs through their skin with an archangel howling above our heads? No? Okay then. Sorry Sammy, looks like it's a bust. Good idea though." He spins the knife between his fingers. "However! Come on, one of you must have another knife on you, or some kind of sharp implement?" He snaps his fingers. Dean drops down to one knee and fumbles for the little knife his keeps strapped to his ankle. There's no such things as too many knives. "Excellent. Okay." He turns Ruby's knife over, examining it from both sides, then settles it in one palm and starts carving into the handle. Sam makes a strangled noise, but doesn't interfere.

When Balthazar hands it back, its handle is covered in Enochian squiggles. "New and improved: now with extra angel-bothering functions!" Balthazar says brightly, and Sam raises his eyebrows. "As for you though, Robert," he continues, eying the gun, "I'm not really-"

"We have a little holy oil left, just not enough to use," one of the male angels says, and Balthazar nods.

"But enough to soak the bullets in, I think. Show him where it is. And you, Dean, since this little thing won't do you much good," and he passes the knife back. "I daresay he'd want you to have it." He doesn't look like he entirely agrees, but he flexes his fingers and one of those silver angel-swords appears in his hand, and he flips it round so its hilt is towards Dean.

It's warm to his touch, like Cas has only just put it away. Dean tightens his fingers around it, imagines he can feel the ghost of Cas's hand under his. He knows the other angels are watching him out of the corners of their eyes. _This is Dean Winchester. The Righteous Man. The cause of all this._ Balthazar meets his gaze, face bland, wing-shadows rising behind him on the wall. Sam is next to him and Bobby somewhere behind, both of them as armed and prepared as they're ever gonna be.

Above them the storm calms, and there's a sudden burst of rustling, like a flock of birds have all landed at once. Then there's a thump, loud and reverbing, and the door dents inwards but doesn't break. A second thud echoes down from the roof; a third brings a fine dust of mortar down on their heads. 

Dean curls his fingers round the sword's grip and waits.

**Author's Note:**

>  _"I'll tell you all how the story ends,_  
>  _Where the good guys die and the bad guys win._  
> ...  
>  _For all of us who've seen the light,_  
>  _Salute the dead and lead the fight."_  
>  \- "Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back", My Chemical Romance


End file.
